While electric shavers are popular and have achieved considerable acceptance, they have not lived up to expectations, particularly from the standpoint of providing a close, smooth shave. Their acceptance, to a substantial extent, has been largely due to their convenience, lack of irritation of the skin, and the fact they can be used without the necessity of shaving creams and hot water applied to the face to soften the hairs. Basically, these same reasons have recommended their adoption by women. However, for many people, these advantages have been offset by the fact that the electric shaver has not provided the close shave that is possible with the conventional safety razor. For this reason, many people are still users of safety razors of one type or another.
It has been determined that the electric shavers' failure to provide a close cut or shave arises from the fact that the hairs, particularly in the case of a man's beard, are located in slight depressions in the skin which surround the base of the hair. Thus, even though the hair is shaved off at the general plane of the skin surface, a short stubble is left in the pocket which is readily felt when one passes one's hand over a newly shaved portion of the beard-producing skin that has been shaved with an electric shaver. Another problem arises from the fact that many hairs grow at an acute angle to the skin surface. These tend to flatten against the skin as the shaver approaches and are only partially shortened. Further, as the shaver approaches the hairs, it is necessarily pressed firmly against the skin which results in some of the hairs, which are normally erect, being pivoted into a position lying at an acute angle to the skin surface. When this occurs, the shaver passes over the hairs either without cutting them, or with only removing a portion of the exposed hair.
It has been determined that the problem can be significantly overcome by causing the hairs to pivot into an erected position while the skin is stretched by the shaver sufficiently to flatten out and thus eliminate the pockets or depressions surrounding the individual hairs. For this purpose, I have provided a panel specifically designed to raise the hair as it enters the shaving head of an electric shaver. This arrangement is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,003,130 issued Jan. 18, 1977 entitled "HAIR RAISING PANEL FOR ELECTRIC SHAVERS." The panel's structure described in that patent provides a marked improvement over the prior art electric shavers. I have, however, discovered that I can obtain significantly improved results through the use of the present invention.